Does a school board decision to change a boundary for an upper-crust neighborhood set a bad precedent?

By Marisa Demarco

The flood of arguments just kept coming. Highland High School proponents see it as an issue of race and class, with the upper-crust Four Hills withdrawing from the diverse Southeast Heights school's district. Four Hills parents say they just want their kids to go to school together from kindergarten through 12th grade and have their homes within the Manzano High boundary. "White flight" was the phrase used by critics.

An ordinance requiring recycling at apartments will cut the amount of city trash significantly

By Marisa Demarco

There's still a lot that needs to be done, but Leonard Garcia predicts the city's recycling program for apartment complexes will be up and running before spring. Garcia, director of the Solid Waste Department, estimates the amount of stuff recycled from the city's waste stream will climb from 10 percent to 12 percent once complexes of 25 dwellings or more are required to provide bins for their tenants.

Now that the canvassing board has finished its accounting, the results of the 2006 election have been finalized and the victors at the polls sent off to get to work on behalf of the public good, at last we can get busy with … the 2008 campaign!

Dateline: Russia--A Russian woman who drank more than 1,300 gallons of Coca Cola has successfully sued the soft drink giant for making her ill. Natalya Kashuba, 27, the owner of a fancy clothing boutique, consumed up to 3 quarts of the soda every day for five years. She took legal action against the soft drink company after claiming she suffered insomnia and heartburn. Miss Kashuba said she became addicted to the drink as a result of a promotional offer that allowed consumers to swap Coca Cola caps for prizes. Dozens of inflatable mattresses and radios she won were used as key evidence in the case. The plaintiff’s lawyer said that as a result of an examination by a gastroenterologist in October 2005, his client was diagnosed with a chronic condition “whose main symptom was heartburn.” Two Russian courts agreed that Coca Cola had failed to warn of the potential health risks of drinking too much Coke and awarded Ms. Kashuba just under $100. Kashuba is seeking a further $100,000 from Coca Cola in “moral damages.”

On the subject of the poorly written and misspelled review by Laura Marrich on the “D” matter [”Music To Your Ears,” Nov. 16-22]. I don’t know what is more offensive? The fact that the one doing the review sounds like a naïve, googlie-eyed, hormone-injected teenager, or the fact that "Devilock" was misspelled by someone who claims they have been listening to Danzig since she was a teen?